Medical students as teachers: how preclinical teaching opportunities can create an early awareness of the role of physician as teacher.

BACKGROUND: As future physicians, questions about when medical students realize they will have to teach remain under-explored. AIM: To understand when students serving in pre-clinical teaching roles make the connection between teaching and being a physician.
METHODS: Medical students involved in a peer instruction program included: (1) archived first-year student interview candidate data (n = 60/150); (2) focus groups of first-year students selected as instructors (n = 16/60); and (3) focus groups of second-year students (n = 16/24) who taught for the program. A modified extended-term mixed-method research design involved data from the pre-hire interviews and post-hire focus group.
RESULTS: Prior to teaching, none of the first year interviewees made an explicit connection between teaching and being a physician. The new instructors selected to teach minimally made a connection and only after prompting. The majority of the experienced instructors did make the connection; however, and did so spontaneously.
CONCLUSION: It was only after they taught medicine-related material that students saw the benefits of teaching as a way of preparing for becoming a physician and not merely as a way to review or help their peers.